"I forgot," writes Lady Lyttelton again, "much the best part of our breaking in, which was that Lucy Kerr (one of the maids of honour) insisted on throwing an old shoe into the house after the Queen, as she entered for the first night, being a Scotch superstition. It looked too strange and amusing. She wanted some melted lead and sundry other charms, but they were not forthcoming. I told her I would call her _Luckie_, and not _Lucy_." During the autumn the Princess of Prussia, who was on a visit to her aunt, Queen Adelaide, went to Windsor Castle, where Madame Bunsen met her. "I arrived here at six," writes Madame Bunsen "and at eight went to dinner in the great hall, hung round with Waterloo pictures, the band playing exquisitely, so placed as to be invisible, so that what with the large proportions of the hall and the well-subdued lights, and the splendours of plate and decorations, the scene was such as fairy tales present; and Lady Canning, Miss Stanley, and Miss Dawson were beautiful enough to represent an ideal queen's ideal attendants. "The Queen looked well and _rayonnante_, with the expression of countenance that she has when pleased with what surrounds her, and which you know I like to see. The old Duke of Cambridge failed not to ask after you. "This morning at nine we were all assembled at prayers in the private chapel, then went to breakfast, headed by Lady Canning, after which Miss Stanley took the Countess Haach and me to see the collection of gold plate. Three works of Benvenuto Cellini, and a trophy from the Armada, an immense flagon or wine-fountain, like a gigantic old- fashioned smelling-bottle, and a modern Indian work--a box given to the Queen by an Indian potentate--were what interested me the most. Then I looked at many interesting pictures in the long corridor. "I am lodged in what is called the Devil's Tower, and have a view of the Round Tower, of which I made a sketch as soon as I was out of bed this morning." In October the Queen and the Prince spent several days on a private visit to the Queen-dowager at her country house of Cashiobury. From Cashiobury the royal couple went on, in bad weather, to Hatfield House, which had once been a palace, but had long been the seat of the Cecils, Marquises of Salisbury. Here more than anywhere else Queen Victoria was on the track of her great predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, while the virgin queen was still the maiden princess, considerably oppressed by her stern sister Queen Mary. Queen Victoria inspected all the relics of the interesting old place, "the vineyard," the banqueting-room fallen down into a stable, and the oak still linked with the name of Queen Bess. At Hatfield there was a laudable innovation on the usual round of festivities. From four to five hundred labourers were regaled on the lawn with a roasted ox and hogsheads of ale.